Alcaics on Restoration Actresses by the Cambridge Classical Scholar James Duport

Abstract

This note brings attention to a neo-Latin ode in Alcaic stanzas entitled ‘In Roscias nostras, seu Histriones Feminas’ (‘On Our Roscias, or Female Actors’), which was written by the Cambridge classical scholar James Duport before 1676. A translation and commentary on the poem provide access for the first time to this learned reaction to the new cultural phenomenon in the Restoration of the professional actress.